Spring is definitely starting to make itself known in the night sky this week
till May 1st, 2026, and it’s a fun change to watch unfold. The evenings are getting longer, and there’s still a bit of chill hanging in the air. The stars are slowly shifting into their new seasonal lineup. It’s that in-between time where winter hasn’t quite let go, but spring is clearly taking over. Honestly, it’s the perfect excuse to step outside for a few minutes and just look up.
🌙 Evening Highlights
After sunset, one of the first things you’ll notice is Jupiter shining bright and steady. It’s high enough to catch your eye right away and sticks around for most of the evening before slowly setting later in the night. If you’ve got binoculars, take a quick look. You might even spot its four largest moons lined up like tiny pinpoints of light.
Low in the western sky, Venus is putting on a great show as well. It’s brilliant and hard to miss, often popping out before the rest of the stars. It sets a couple of hours after the Sun, so it’s a fun challenge to see how early you can pick it out in the fading twilight. It’s more of a “two-anchor” sky—Venus grabs your attention near the horizon, while Jupiter stands higher and steadier above.
This week is also a good time to try for Uranus. Using binoculars, line up Venus and scan just to the southwest—you’re looking for a faint, bluish dot. It’s subtle, but pretty satisfying once you find it.
And if you’ve got a darker western horizon, keep an eye out for a faint glow stretching upward after sunset—that’s the zodiacal light, sometimes called “false dusk.” It’s easy to miss, but this time of year gives you one of the better chances to catch it.
🌅 Early Morning Highlights
If you’re up early (or just getting home late), a little something is waiting before sunrise, too.
Saturn rises about 45 minutes before sunrise in the east. It’s still pretty low, so you’ll need a clear horizon to catch it.
Mars sits to the east and a bit below Saturn, making it trickier to spot for now, but it’ll get easier as the weeks go on.
✨ Constellations
This is where the seasonal shift really stands out in the night sky this week.
Looking overhead around 10 PM, you’ll notice a large backward “question mark” with a triangle trailing behind it—this is Leo the Lion. The “question mark” (called the Sickle) forms the mane, and the triangle makes up the hindquarters. The brightest star here is Regulus. On Saturday, the Moon passes just north of Regulus—close enough to make for a great pairing in the sky.
There’s some neat history tied to Leo, too. In ancient Egypt, when the Sun moved into Leo, it lined up with the annual flooding of the Nile—bringing life-giving water. That’s part of why lion imagery showed up so often in fountains designed by the Greeks and Romans.
Off to the west, Taurus the Bull is starting to dip lower. You can still pick out its V-shaped face, with the bright orange star Aldebaran marking the eye. It won’t be around much longer in the evening sky, so now’s a good time to take one last look before it fades into the sunset over the coming weeks.
If you get a clear night, even just a few minutes outside can be worth it. This is one of those times of year when the sky feels like it’s in transition—and you can actually watch it happen night by night.